Minuteman Project to Launch U.S. Caravan

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

Seeking to counter mass demonstrations by immigrant rights groups, organizers of the Minuteman Project plan to launch a nationwide caravan in Los Angeles today that will focus, in large part, on the jobs they contend are lost to illegal immigrants.

In particular, the group hopes to highlight the concern over job losses in the African American community.

<snip>
The tour is scheduled to stop in three cities and several rural communities between Los Angeles and the nation's capital. There will be a short event to kick off the tour, then rally points in Phoenix; Crawford, Texas; and Washington, D.C. Gilchrist estimated that at least 400 vehicles would join the caravan, with about 100 cars, SUVs and RVs leaving from Los Angeles.

<snip>
Black leaders who plan to attend the kickoff event include Ted Hayes, founder of the Crispus Attucks Brigade, an African American group fighting the influx of undocumented migrants, and the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny. The Minuteman Project counts about 200 African Americans among its 200,000 members, said Tim Bueler, a spokesman for the group.

Although the caravan wouldn't necessarily stop in black communities, editorial note: forgive me if I think that's hilarious!Hayes said, he supported the Minuteman Project because its larger cause honors civil rights won by black Americans.

<snip>
But some African American activists consider the Minuteman Project's focus on black Americans a ploy to gain attention.

"I'm appalled that Ted Hayes and the Minuteman Project would pander to African American fears," said Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic Hope.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-minuteman3may03,1,1201645.story?coll=la-headlines-california

There's just SO much that's wrong with this project, not the least of which is this:

More people moving to America means MORE construction, so claiming they are taking all the construction jobs is pure crap.

Meanwhile, the tech industry imports workers from other nations legally to drive wages down in the tech market but one does not see these Minutemen patriots opposing that practice

Furthermore, manufacturing moves freely elsewhere because they don't wish to pay American wages nor have to deal with pesky labor laws and health insurance...but I am sure the Minutemen are not boycotting companies that do this..... ahhhhhh, scapegoating....alive and well in America

[wtmusic]

1. Carrying on the legacy of Crispus Attucks

whose name lives in history as a staunch defender of nothing to do with immigration. :silly:

[Bridget Burke]

3. Crispus Attucks had "questionable" legal status....

By the laws of his time. He is thought to have been a runaway slave, with some Native American blood.

Surely, some of the slaveholders who led the Revolution would have considered him ILLEGAL.

[JDPriestly]

2. Ted Hayes cavorts with Republicans and just doesn't get it.

My subjective opinion re: Ted Hays, based on having watched him for a long time. He's the sort who is "in it" for the personal glory -- a sort of megalomaniac who thinks he alone can save the problems of the downtrodden. He seems to sort of see himself as a lone messiah out there and views others who are sincere about serving the homeless and poor with contempt. He never shies away from publicity and acts like he thinks he is the only person with the insight, inspiration and dedication to change the world. He doesn't question the ideology of people he takes money or help from as long as they feed his megalomania. He is at the very least a distraction. At worst, he gives others who are trying to work together to improve their community a bad name with his grandstanding. Most of what he does leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

[sharp_stick]

4. How the hell do these people survive?

I'd love to take a bunch of time off work but my family would starve and we'd probably lose the house if I did that.

I would really like to know how people can take weeks at a time off from whatever the hell they're supposed to be doing to sit in a lawn chair, hold a rifle and stare at an old fence in Arizona pretending to make a difference.

[Doctor Venmkan]

15. Here's an idea..

"I'd love to take a bunch of time off work but my family would starve and we'd probably lose the house if I did that."

Why not ask all the "hard-working" illegal-rights protestors how THEY can do it? ;)

[Bridget Burke]

21. Each protest takes one day or part of a day.

So not much time off is needed. Also, quite a few of the protesters are not "illegal."

The hardworking wives of the Minutemen probably don't miss them. In fact, I'll bet they urge them to get off the recliner, relinquish control of the remote & go marching.

[Tom Joad]

5. Scapegoating, alive and well at DU, too.

It amazes me that while there is one of the largest mass movements in the US in at least 60 years, a movement that grew out of a challenge to a Republican proposed law, there is little discussion at DU, which seems to have this near-fetish over entertainers and politicians, but will have nothing to do with a movement on the ground that has such awesome people-power. Entertainers can do wonderful things (props to Springsteen), politicians sometimes do and say the right thing... but it will get nowhere unless it is backed up on the ground. So we should all be talking about how we are going to join this remarkable movement and help it grow, and fight for justice for immigrants, fight terrible trade laws (NAFTA) that make migration the only choice for so many, and how we can have similar street actions to stop the war.

Even worse it saddens me that so many take the anti-immigrant stance, and play into the divide and conquer strategy of U.S. corporate rulers.

[earthside]

6. No, It is You

Let's be clear ... George W. Bush and the U.S Chamber of Commerce want an easily crossed U.S.-Mexican border. They also favor a "guest peon" program (as I call it), They also support an "amnesty" or "earned citizenship" plan.

That puts you and the illegal immigrant marchers and ralliers on the same side as the U.S. corporate rulers.

They have one objective: lower wages and cut workers benefits in this country. Period.

Repealing NAFTA will never happen if Kennedy-McCain passes.
Unionization of Wal-Mart and those types of low wage companies will never happen if a "liberal" immigration reform bill becomes law.
There will be no universal health care insurance, ever.

Because -- there will be so much surplus labor in this country that the corporate employers will never have to be concerned about finding workers at any low price.

It is you that have played right into the hands of the U.S. corporate rulers ... and all they had to do was play the "compassion" card.

Sheesh, it's sad.

[robbibaba]

7. Divide and Conquer is a hard pit to keep from falling into

Seems to me the solution to the immigration issue is simple (simple and very hard to implement): pour our resources into improving conditions in the countries the immigrants are leaving. At the least we could stop our active destruction of their economies. No?

[Tom Joad]

8. They want a "guest worker" program.

I want full and equal rights among all workers. I also want fair trade, not un"Free Trade". I think there is a difference.

[Critters2]

11. It's a little late

for the Union workers who've lost their jobs to illegal immigrants. To support the demands of the demonstrators is to undermine unions. Period.

[Tom Joad]

12. Strange how so little is said about how capital shifts jobs around

from country to country, in search of cheap and exploitable labor.
Nothing to say about NAFTA, WTO and other unfair trade agreements that cause so much displacement?
Nothing about making a living wage mandatory for all workers?

The silence speaks volumes.

[Bridget Burke]

23. As a granddaughter of some of those "Legal" immigrants....

Who came through Ellis Island, I'd like a return to the old days. Let's put immigration offices along the Border. Then give potential immigrants physicals & brief interviews. Those who pass get legal residence papers & a welcome to the USA. Immigration lawyers would complain, since a return to the simpler method would deprive them of much income.

The immigrants would still be hardworking--as were my grandparents. But, without deportation hanging over their heads, they would be free to demand better pay. In fact, many might join or form Unions. (Latin America has a strong history of labor activism.) The lot of all US workers might well improve. In fact, workers in other countries could get involved--I've heard of Indian call center workers banding together. (The average "too good to join a Union" American expresses his anger at outsourcing by being, like, really rude when they get on a tech help line & discover they are talking to an Indian or a Filipino.)

The Corporate fatcats would oppose this plan. They prefer setting up "guest worker" programs or continuing allowing "illegals" to come over, afraid to ask for better deals.

The xenophobes can blather on about "deport them all" or building their famous "wall." Nothing will come of their plans but a temporary spike in their testosterone levels.

[struggle4progress]

20. Company relocation of manufacturing abroad has been a major source ..

.. of industrial job loss for twenty-five years.

Globalization and the Maquiladoras

... In Mexico, nearly six years after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was supposed to create more jobs and higher wages throughout North America, one of the consequences of free trade has been the proliferation of maquiladora factories, which critics call little better than sweatshops. Relaxed rules on foreign investment and export duties have made it far easier for foreign companies to open these low-wage assembly plants where workers make everything from leather gloves to televisions for multinational companies including BMW, Chrysler, Fisher Price, Sony, and Xerox, mostly for export to the US.

There are by now some 4,000 maquiladoras concentrated along the US-Mexico border. According to the Mexican business journal El Financiero, employment in the maquiladoras nearly doubled between 1993 and 1998, and now stands at over one million people.

According to a Workers University of Mexico study, maquiladora workers earn between $3.50 and $5 a day - enough to do little more than survive in the border towns, where the cost of living is 30 per cent higher than in the rest of the country ...

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/wto/soriano1.html

Maquiladora Workers Can't Meet Basic Needs on Plant Wages

Workers in foreign-owned export assembly plants in Mexico are not able to meet a family's basic needs on maquiladora wages, according to a comprehensive study conducted in fifteen Mexican cities. Over 3,500 maquiladoras employ an estimated 1.2 million workers who manufacture products for export.

According to the study Making The Invisible Visible: A Study of Maquila Workers in Mexico-2000, in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, a family of four needs 193.86 pesos a day to reach a sustainable living wage. Based on pay slips collected from a number of maquiladora workers, a majority takes home less than 55.55 pesos (approximately US$6.00) a day, which is 28.6% of what a family of four people needs to meet its basic needs. One minimum wage salary in Matamoros provides only 19.6% of what a family of four needs to earn.

http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/sep01/comm.html

Maquiladoras at a Glance
... Type of employment: Worker from Auto Trim de Mexico S. A. de C. V
Work Schedule: 40 hours per week
Daily wage: $8.29
Minimum wage (Geographic Area A): $3.44 per day
Wage per hour: $1.04
Weekly salary: $58.09
Discount for union dues (4%): $2.32
Net pay: $55.77
Amount leftover per week for clothes, shoes, entertainment and medical attention: $2.03
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1528

[phusion]

9. I thought these "minutemen"

were merely concerned about the security issues on the border? Now they're launching a caravan to protest supposed job loss as a result of immigration?

[struggle4progress]

19. Hate groups on the rise (Indian Country Today - April 27, 2006)

TUCSON, Ariz. - The Southern Poverty Law Center said .. that Laine Lawless of the Border Guardians has called for violence against undocumented workers.

Lawless sent an e-mail dated April 3, to Mark Martin, SS commander of the Western Ohio unit of the National Socialist Movement, according to Susy Buchanan and David Holthouse of the Intelligence Report.

Lawless' e-mail was titled, ''How to GET RID OF THEM!''

''Maybe some of your warriors for the race would be the kind of people willing to implement some of these ideas,'' Lawless said ...

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412908

[UTUSN]

10. Let's see how many of the 400 FINISH n/t

[paparush]

13. Maybe they'll write some songs and stuff..

like Lallapalooza...only I'll call it LallaPaLOSERS!

[Kittycat]

14. I wonder how much their gas bill will be? RVs and SUVs - ROFL

:lol: They'll be broke before they get to the midwest.

[w4rma]

16. Good. (nt)

[struggle4progress]

17. ".. black protesters .. chanted .. 'KKK go home!' .."

Minuteman Project Tours for Border Safety

... Minuteman leaders started the trip from a park in a black neighborhood as part of a push to attract more blacks as members ... But the event soon provoked screaming matches about whether illegal immigrants were taking jobs from blacks or should be embraced as fellow minorities looking for a better life. Gilchrist had to yell over a dozen mostly black protesters who chanted "Minutemen go home!" and "KKK go home!" ...

http://www.columbian.com/news/APStories/AP05032006news25495.cfm

[Robb]

18. Early, hi-tech super secret pics:

:rofl:

[KansDem]

22. Don't these guys have jobs?

What's with this driving all over Hell's creation in huge, gas-guzzling trucks?

Someone must be putting up big dough for this group!

[yellowcanine]

24. 200 African Americans out of a membership of 200,000????

Granted the 200,000 is probably an exaggeration but the 200 probably is as well. Anyway, that is 0.1 %, correct? Ok that's impressive.

[geniph]

25. I don't get the Minutemen, I really don't

I mean, I'm in favor of sensible immigration policies and penalizing the breaking of the law (although my personal preference is to penalize those who break the law by knowingly employing illegals), I believe we need to protect our borders (otherwise, why even have them?), but the Minutemen are so hipped on the subject that they're like fetishists. Don't these people have homes? Don't they have jobs? How can they spend this kind of time and money on something so futile (you can't address the problem of illegal immigration until you tackle the root causes, folks, not the symptoms)? Are they all retired or unemployed? Who's buying their gas? Who's buying their beer and their ammunition? Do they have this kind of time because they were all picking strawberries or mowing lawns or slaughtering cattle until the flood of illegals displaced them?

I don't get it. All this for thinly-veiled xenophobia, reminiscent of the days of "Yellow Peril" paranoia.

They really need a different hobby.